


Safe

by Espoir



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Protective Dean Winchester, Sharing a Bed, Weechesters, car crash, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 05:38:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3679968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Espoir/pseuds/Espoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets hurt in a minor car crash- when Dean's driving. John is not best pleased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dollylux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/gifts).



> Semi-inspired by dollylux's magnificent 'The Ballad of the Invisible Boy'. It's not really based in her verse, but the besotted, Dean-orientated Sam definitely is. If you haven't read it, please do- it's an absolute classic <3

Dean’s 16th birthday just happens to fall on a Sunday. It’s rare for the Winchesters to be graced with such a trivial bit of luck, Sam thinks, as he watches Dean’s eyes finally blink blearily open when the sun is high in the sky and breakfast is looking more like lunch, and he’s unbelievably grateful for it.

They’ve all three of them been running on empty for days now, tracking this thing, dark bags under Dad’s eyes, a twitch in his index finger that’s itching for a trigger or a cracked shot glass- whichever comes first, and Dean’s not been much better. He’s grown terrifyingly quickly the past few months, shot up and filled out in a way that makes Sam’s stomach tight with unexpected envy, but combined with the days of research and nights out hunting, his eyes are hollow with exhaustion, skin pale and cheeks unnervingly prominent.

“Damn fine cheekbones I’ve been graced with Sammy; ladies just queuing up to cut themselves on ‘em,” he’d said, jaunty and teasing and grinning his _I’m-freaking-indestructible_ smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Sam had just smiled weakly back at him, torn between wanting to hit Dean over the head for wasting what precious energy he had left on being a jerk for Sam’s amusement, and wanting to bundle him up in blankets and not let him leave the motel room until they’d both slept for a week.

And so maybe, just for a little bit, Sam could know he was properly safe.

Sam hadn’t been asked to go out hunting, hadn’t been on a single hunt yet period, but sometimes he swore it was far more dangerous sitting at home alone, chewing his nails till they bled and trying to find something to do to keep him from going mad with boredom and worry and downright terror.

The shifter had been caught though in the end, salted and burnt to nothing but dust the night before. Just in time too, because more than anything for this birthday, Sam wanted Dean to have a day off.

“Happy Birthday Dean,” Sam says quietly from the opposite bed, his cheeks aching with the effort of holding back his ridiculous grin. He’s been awake for hours, half-heartedly re-reading Harry Potter, mostly watching Dean’s every snore and grunt for signs of waking up.

Dean gives a jaw-cracking yawn, and clumsily rubs at his eyes with the back of a fist. The watery winter rays of sunlight filtering through the crappy blinds fall across the blankets. They light up Dean’s lean forearms, defined muscle beneath the skin, turning the downy hair there golden.

”Thanks Sammy,” he says, voice hoarse and sleep-roughened. Dean rolls over onto his side and offers Sam a sleepy, sated smile.

Sam’s chest tightens in the way it always does when Dean lets his guard down like this, when he smiles at Sam just for the sake of it. Dean’s been a bit of dick recently (“Teenage hormones,” Dad had told Sam with a dark look, “you best be steering well clear of them son- I’m not dealing with this shit twice”) but it’s his birthday today, and he’s going to be 16 which is practically adult and Sam knows, just _knows_ , that it’s going to be better from now on.

“S’time?” Dean mumbles, battling wearily with the sheets until he can sit up.

“Time you got your ass out of bed before the day’s over,” Dad says gruffly from the doorway, but he’s smiling with an expression that might almost be fond. “You too Sam. You’ve been up since 8 anyway.”

“Jerk- why didn’t you wake me up?” Dean accuses Sam, reaching across to poke him clumsily as he clambers to his feet in the space between their beds.

“Jeez it’s cold in here. One of you best have gotten me some new socks ‘cause I’m out of non-holey pairs and my freaking toes are going to fall off alre-“

Sam throws the new pack of Walmart hiking socks that he’d bought two towns back onto Dean’s bed. He doesn’t bother to hide his grin this time when Dean fixes him with an appraising eyebrow and bemused expression.

“We share anyway,” Sam says by way of explanation, shrugging as though he couldn’t care less. As though he hadn’t spent a ridiculous 15 minutes in the supermarket aisle picking out the colour combination he thought Dean would like best.

Dean snorts, but tears the packaging off and sits down on the bed to start pulling on the socks.

“Well, psychic boy, I could sure do with some new jeans if you happen to have a pair of those lying around too-“, he says teasingly, winking at Sam.

It’s at that moment something else plops into the tangle of sheets next to Dean, thrown from the doorway.

There's a pause as Dean takes in the object. Sam watches his face flit from confusion to shock to wonder.

Dean lifts up the set of keys gingerly, the slim-pocket knife key ring glinting in the dim room. He looks across at Dad, eyes wide.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Dean breathes, half to himself, closing his fingers around the keys. Sam’s right there with him, his heart pounding in his chest, because this, right this second, is one of those moments that they’re going to remember for the rest of their lives; the tangled sheets, the dust mites swirling in the shafted light, the keys to the world in Dean’s sleep-warmed hand.

“Dad,” Dean starts, voice rough in a completely different way, “are you serious-“

“As a heart attack,” Dad says dryly, and he ducks out of the door but Sam sees his smile anyway. He hasn't been in a mood this good for months. “You go easy on her now, you hear me? I see so much as a nick in the paintwork you’re going to wish I’d gotten you a damn pair of jeans.”

“Yessir,” Dean calls dutifully, but he’s grinning from ear to ear at Sam and his eyes are alive and Sam could fall into them. Sam clambers off his bed to join Dean on his, and peers over at the keys. He’s seen them a thousand times before, on grimy diner tables, hanging for the ignition, but somehow they look different in Dean’s hands; in Dean’s faintly shaking palm they’re not just a set of old keys, they’re _freedom_.

“Holy shit Sammy,” Dean whispers, “he’s gonna let me drive the Impala. He’s gonna let me drive-“ and as though saying it out loud somehow makes the thought finally sink in, Dean half-leaps, half-falls out of bed and begins yanking on his jeans, rifling through the bedside drawers for a clean t-shirt, movements clumsily hasty with a boyish excitement Sam hasn’t seen in years.

Sam sits back on his heels, watching him, just like always, and he feels a faint twinge of unhappiness curl somewhere in his gut. It’s only fair of course- Dean’s first drive out without Dad, he’s going to want to go on his own. Just Dean, the car, and the open road. Sam can hardly blame him, after years of being stuck in stifling motel rooms with Dad and Sam, years of sitting in the back seat, going where Dad is going whether he likes it or not. Now, he’s finally getting a first taste of freedom, of adulthood, and he wants to enjoy it alone. It’s what Dean wants, so it what Sam wants.

He just kinda hoped he could come along too.

Dean pulls his beaten leather jacket down from the curtain rail and looks across at Sam, as though Sam had said that last part out loud. Sam tries to smile at him, tries to reassure Dean that Sam’s happy for him, but it feels odd and uncomfortable.

“C’mon Sammy, you gonna sit there all day?” Dean says casually, throwing Sam’s hoodie across at him, “It’ll be dark before 5 and I want to get at least out onto Route 58.”

A flicker of hope swells in Sam’s chest, but he pushes it down, tries to act nonchalant. “Sure you don’t wanna-“

“-Go without you?” Dean finishes, frowning, “Why the hell would you think that? ‘Course you’re coming kiddo.”

It’s the assertion in Dean's voice that gets Sam; that makes his insides liquefy into warm happiness. It’s just a casual throwaway statement, but the way Dean says it, as though that much is obvious, as though it’s always been obvious, why would he think any different and jeez, keep up Sammy.

Sam can’t help it. He knows Dad thinks he’s getting too old for hugs, but he stumbles to his feet and barrels into Dean’s arms anyway, his chest aching with the intense sense of belonging Dean always makes him feel when he says shit like that.

Dean hugs him right back, ruffling the messy cowlicks at the back of Sam’s head while he’s at it.

“Jerk. As if I’d leave you out of this.”

Sam mushes his face into Dean’s chest, inhaling the scent of leather, faded cologne and musty wood-smoke from the last salt ‘n’ burn and Dean. He’s so lucky, he thinks to himself, so frickin’ lucky to have Dean for a brother.

Dean makes him dress quick, laughing as he throws clothes at Sam’s head to put on. Sam’s near-giddy with anticipation himself, grabbing some apples from the kitchen, passing Dean his wallet from on top of the fridge, just in case, and then they’re out on the porch.

“Sam,” Dad’s warning voice comes from the living room, halting them in their tracks, the front door inches from closed behind them. “Where d’you think you’re going?”

“Sam can tag along too can’t he?” Dean calls cheerfully, winking at Sam in the way he does that means ‘don’t sweat it Sam, I’ve got this one.’

There’s a pause.

Sam chews at his hangnail, holding Dean’s eye as they wait, one foot on the steps off the porch. Hoping against hope that Dad isn’t having a paranoid day where he won’t let Sam do anything in some jacked-up attempt to keep his youngest ‘safe.’

“Make sure he’s wearin’ a seatbelt,” Dad says loudly at length, “drive safe, and your asses better be back here by 8!”

Sam silently fist pumps the air in a moment of inexplicable, uncontainable joy and Dean laughs at him.

“Sure thing Dad,” Dean yells as he kicks the door shut and comes down the stairs after Sam grinning so wide that Sam feels likes he’s staring into the sun.

They half-jog down to the Impala, Sam wrenching open the passenger side door and falling into the seat with Dean next to him.

For a second they just sit there, breathing heavily, then-

“Hell yeah!” Dean crows, suddenly, out of the blue, the elation and pride rolling off him in waves and Sam can’t stop smiling.

 

* * *

 

Dean’s driven the Impala before of course. Dad’s been teaching him since he was 14, but Dean’s never driven her like this; without Dad’s judgemental eye when the gear change clunks, without Dad's continuous criticism about Dean’s liberal use of the gas pedal.

Dean floors the gas as soon as they hit the highway, and the Impala roars to life beneath them, tearing up the asphalt as they thunder past the last of the houses and out into the forests. Dean’s laughing like he’s high, and Sam rolls down his window so the biting January air whips through the car in a howling roar and numbs his cheeks and ears. They’re delirious; freedom and independence and _no Dad_ vibrating in the air between them and Sam closes his eyes for a second, feeling the surging power of the Impala humming through the seat, listening to Dean’s whoops and catcalls as the speedometer inches past 80. _Safe driving my ass,_ Sam thinks, but he can’t bring himself to care.

It’s too cold to keep the window down for long though, and Sam rolls it up, glancing over at Dean as he does so- all flushed cheeks and wild hair and the biggest shit-eating grin Sam’s ever seen.

“Can I put on some music?”

Dean takes one hand off the wheel in order to perform an all encompassing ‘be my guest’ gesture at the stereo, and Sam laughs, pokes him in the side for being a jerk and just because he can.

The tape is a new one. A band that Dean’s probably never even heard of before. Sam had saved lunch money for months to buy it for Dean’s 16th and if Dean dosen’t like it Sam may just cry.

Sam glances furtively over at his brother as the opening guitar chords of the first single start up, anxiously assessing for a reaction. Dean’s brow is furrowed for a moment, listening, and Sam’s heart starts to pick up; it’s stupid, he’s stupid, he shouldn’t get this wound up over whether Dean likes his stupid tape or not but he can’t bear it if-

Then the bass riff kicks in, vibrating through the speakers, and the vocals start up- loud and gritty and real, just like them and the road, and Dean grins, fingers starting up a beat on the steering wheel.

Sam is heady with relief, and he sinks back in the passenger seat, tugging on his seat belt so it’s off his chest a little. Dean is typically seat-beltless. Dad would kill him, but although Dean lives by the letter most of the time, especially when it comes to hunts, Dad’s not here and Dean is 16 now and always has been just too cool for trival things like safety anyway.

“Hey Sammy this isn’t half bad,” Dean calls above the music, sending Sam an approving smile that washes over him like a warm bath- Sam luxuriates in it. “Where’d you get it?”

“Illinois,” Sam yells back- the chorus has picked up and Dean’s whacked the volume up to full, knee jigging in time, joining in with the drum beat on the steering wheel, “I’m glad you like ‘em otherwise it’d be a shitty birthday present.”

Dean double takes another look at Sam.

“This another present for me?” he asks, sorta frowning.

“Sure Dean,” Sam says happily; he’s so goddamned happy, “16 is the new 21. Had to get you something good.”

Dean laughs, disbelieving, and reaches over to ruffle a hand through Sam’s messy hair, fingers scritching through the dark curls. Sam’s eyes flutter close, and he leans into the touch.

“You’re too damn nice for your own good Sammy,” Dean says, softer this time, because the song’s reached its quiet, guitar solo bridge, “don’t deserve you.”

“’Course you do,” Sam says easily, opening his eyes to grin at Dean. He keeps his expression relaxed, open, even throat feels tight with the force of honesty welling up inside him. Because it’s the truth, and damned if Dean dosen’t know it. Dean deserves the best of everything, and Sam might not be able to get him the best, certainly isn’t the best of the two of them, but like hell if he doesn’t try.

Dean meets his eye a couple of times, glancing between Sam and the road, before huffing and withdrawing his hand.

“Well I’m just glad you inherited the Winchester gene of a decent taste in music. ‘Cept that Classical garbage shit-“

“Erik Satie is not garbage!” Sam starts up at once, and his heart isn’t in arguing at all, but this, this pushing and shoving and teasing, is what Dean likes to revert to when things get a little too feelings-orientated.

“You’re 12 for Christ’s sake! What 12 year old listens to Opera?!”

“It’s not Opera! Jesus Dean it’s just piano music-“

“You little emo punk with your piano-“

“It’s good to do homework too!-“

And they fall into easy banter, back and forth, teasing and jibing, and every now and then Dean picks up the pace or revs the engine just because he can, face lighting up with glee like he’s 8 years old. Sam can’t help but mirror each laugh, each grin. Dean’s always been the centre of his world. He’s happy because Dean is, and that’s all there is to it.

 

* * *

 

The afternoon sun is quickly fading, giving way to inky black velvet skies and clustered handfuls of stars. Dean had said he’d be back by 8, but it’s barely 7 and the moon is already high in the sky, shockingly bright like the sun up here in the forests with no light pollution around for miles.

They stopped talking a while back, and have fallen into a comfortable silence. Dean made a u-turn just before they hit Route 59, so they’re heading back home even if they’re a way off yet. They’re listening to the album for the fourth time this afternoon, but the stereo is quiet now, accompanying the contented rumble of the engine.

Sam can feel himself being lulled to sleep, leaning up against the warmth of Dean’s side, half-watching the headlamps illuminating the never ending stretch of asphalt before them.

Dean’s always been good at steering with one hand, but Dad snaps at him for it so he never does. With Dad still miles away though, Dean lapses back into old habits, and lets one of his hands rest midway on Sam’s thigh.

It’s not uncommon for them; being close. They never talk about it, Sam never needs ask, but it just happens sometimes as natural as breathing. The heat from Dean’s palm seeps through Sam’s jeans, warming his leg and sending a minute shiver up Sam’s spine. Dean’s hand is huge, his fingers long and solid and so much bigger than Sam’s- yet impossibly deft and agile too, dismantling a gun in the time it takes Sam to blink; bandaging a bleeding wound in the time it takes Dad to swallow a handful of painkillers. Sam likes Dean’s hands. Likes them dismantling guns, wrapping bandages, twirling a penknife, in Sam’s hair, on Sam’s forehead when he’s burning up with fever. He especially likes them now, nearly spanning the entirety of Sam’s thigh, making him feel even smaller than he already knows he is in comparison to his big brother.

Sometimes it worries him. That he might never catch up with Dean. That he might be stuck the small, thin boy with a dark-mop of hair; geeky, girlfriendless and forgettable- forever in the shadow of the Greek God that is Dean, with his chiseled jaw and perfect mouth and eyes dark and green and fathomless like the ocean.

But then, then other times he thinks that he’ll never need to catch up to Dean. Because he’ll always have Dean anyway.

Steering giggling girls in his direction, introducing him to people like Sam's the most important person they'll ever meet, people whose eyes would normally pass over him, threatening to beat up that guy four schools ago that wouldn’t let up about Sam being a nerd- even though Dean himself calls Sam a nerd on a daily basis.

He doesn’t need to be Dean, because he has Dean.

“Sammy? Don’t fall asleep on me kiddo, my arm’s gone completely dead,” Dean says, voice gruff and fond, and Sam groans petulantly, leaning forward so that Dean can take back his arm from around Sam’s back.

“Hey- no bitching, whose the one whose been driving for 5 hours straight, going nowhere? I’m wiped man.”

“You _wanted_ to drive,” Sam reminds him dopily, leaning against the cool glass of the window instead. “This is how decided to spend your birthday.” _With me_ he adds silently in his head, feeling a little frission of selfish satisfaction shoot through him at the thought.

_Not some girl. Dean wanted to spend his birthday with me._

“Damn straight,” Dean says happily, seeming to have forgotten the argument. “Y’know I could get used to this Sam. Out on the open road. Going wherever we like.”

“Without Dad?” Sam queries, trying not to sound interested. Dean gets on better with Dad than he does, and Sam rarely hears him say a bad word about him.

“Not all the time,” Dean amends easily, “just occasionally. We could take the car sometimes when he’s holed up somewhere staking something out and doesn’t need my help.”

And that’s what it still is, Sam thinks a little bitterly, _Dean_ _’s_ help. Not Sam’s. He might not particularly like the idea of hunting, but he’s more than aware that at his age Dean had mastered Dad’s .45, made his own sawed-off shotgun and had more than a couple of hunts under his belt. Dad hadn’t given Sam a single shooting practice. Sure, Sam knew the basics, safety catch, fire, reload etc as well as his fair share of hand-to-hand combat, but he couldn’t help but feel Dad was holding back on him.

As though he knew Sam wouldn’t be able to handle it as well as Dean.

That was the funny thing about being babied. Sam didn’t mind it from Dean at all, in fact, he liked Dean being gentle with him sometimes; but from Dad. When Dad talked down to him like he was decades younger than Dean rather than 4 measley years, Sam felt sick.

“Quit thinking so loud,” Dean says, reaching over to the stereo to flip the tape for the 5th time, and man, Sam never thought he’d like the album this much but he’s so glad he does, “I can hear your cogs turning from here.”

“Sorry,” Sam says.

“What’s eating you anyway?” Dean asks, eyes flitting to Sam’s face. He can read Sam like a book, work out something’s wrong in a second; it’s almost scary sometimes.

“Just...” Sam trails off, but he knows Dean hates him shirking around a straight answer, so he goes for it. “Just wondering if Dad will ever treat me like he treats you. Y’know, like a hunter.”

Dean instantly fixes Sam with a hard look.

“Of course he will Sam. You’re just not old enough yet.”

“You were going on hunts my age,” Sam says quietly.

“Yeah because he needed back-up and I was the only option he had,” Dean fires back, a little bluntly, and Sam feels himself internally cowering in the face of Dean’s annoyance, “He would rather he’d have left me at home with you. It sure as hell wasn’t ideal Sam, and it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for me either. We’re doing it right this time with you- waiting till you’re ready. That’s all there is to it.”

Sam wants to believe it. He really does. Dean makes perfect sense, just as he always does, but Dean hasn’t been on the end of Dad’s frustrated sighs when Sam messes up a drill or struggles to catch his breath after a sprint, hasn’t felt the calculating assessing stares when Sam takes too long to reload a gun or stumbles over his Latin pronunciation. Dean wouldn’t know about any of that, because all of it comes easy to him. He doesn’t have to think twice.

“Yeah,” Sam says, and it sounds hollow even to his own ears, “Yeah I guess you’re right.”

“Aw c’mon Sam don’t be like that,” Dean teases lightly, trying to get Sam back on track, trying to make him crack a smile, just like he always is. “Still my birthday right? No sulking allowed on my birthday- new rules. How about a sing-along- you’d think we’d know the words to this album by now wouldn’t you?” And he cranks up the volume so the bass vibrates through the seats again.

They do know the words. Just about. For the lines Dean doesn’t know, he makes up lyrics that sound similar-

“Microwave drive-through,” he croons, “Gonna go to Timbuktu.”

Sam collapses into giggles as the rhymes get steadily more and more ridiculous, because Dean is hilarious, he’s lightning fast, and witty and smart and Sam will never understand why Dad says that _he_ _’s_ the clever one when it’s really Dean. He may not bother with letters at the top of tests and assignments, but when it comes to the things that matter, like connecting the dots through research on a hunt, like figuring out when Sam wants to be left alone and brought Fruit Loops because sometimes he just _does_ , like now, making up stupid lyrics off the top of his head in the warm cocoon of the Impala, safe from the dark shadows of trees whipping past outside, so stupid Sam’s tearing up from laughter, his ribs aching; he’s the smartest person in the whole world and Sam will nut anyone who tries to tell him different.

“One day I’m gonna be just like you,” Sam sings along, grinning, and it’s the proper lyrics, but he hasn’t really taken note of them until the words are tripping off his tongue to the steady drum beat and strumming guitar.

Sam glances across at Dean, smiling shyly, his chest expanding with the Dean-centred emotion that’s always there in the background but sometimes swells up without warning in moments like these.

Dean should tease Sam, should cuff him playfully for being too ‘lovey-dovey’, too cliché; but he doesn’t. He just meets Sam’s eye briefly, his expression kind and open but his eyes guarded with conflicting emotions that he doesn’t want Sam to see. Sam sees them anyway.

Dean opens his mouth as if to respond, but Sam never does find out what he was going to say-

Because the next second a massive dark shape is there, just _there_ , in the middle of the road, hurtling towards them, and Dean half-shouts, half-yelps, before slamming on the breaks, the tyres shrieking in protest, the car lurching forward in a violent jolt.

It happens so fast Sam barely has time to blink, but somehow Dean manages to say Sam’s name, a rising shout of panic, and slam his arm across Sam’s chest to hold him back. One minute they’re singing dumb, imaginary lyrics and the next Sam is being hurled forward, the seatbelt and Dean’s arm knocking the breath out of his lungs with colossal force.

Then they’re sitting stationary in the middle of the road, an enormous male moose staring at them sombrely up at the head-lights.

They stare right back at the moose, adrenalin pounding collectively through their veins- Dean breathing heavily like he’s just run a 10 mile drill.

Sam realises he isn’t breathing at all and takes a shuddering, deep breath, ribs protesting. His whole body aches, like he’s just hit a brick wall. The seat-belt did its job alright, along with the solid bar of Dean’s arm holding him back against the seat, but Sam can feel that he’s gonna have bruises for _weeks_.

“Sam- Sammy are you okay? You hurt anywhere?” Dean asks him at once, voice shaking slightly. He pulls back his arm from Sam’s front only to run a hand round the back of Sam’s head, down his chest, subconsciously checking for injuries. “Did you hit your head? Did I hurt you when I-“

Sam winces as Dean’s palm passes over his ribs, and he hears Dean’s breath stutter.

“Shit- d’you think you’ve fractured one? Fucking hell, I’m so sorry Sammy- I knew you were wearing a seatbelt, I just didn’t think, it was just instinct-“

“Dean,” Sam says, voice raspy and barely there, “I’m fine. Seriously. Just- just winded a bit.”

He winces again, tugging the seatbelt away from his throbbing chest, pain spiderwebbing out from the point of contact of the belt and Dean’s fist in burning hot splinters across his entire body. His neck twinges a bit too. Whiplash.

He looks up and is greeted with Dean surveying him with narrowed, disbelieving eyes. Dean can read Sam like a book after all. He knows when Sam is lying.

But then Sam takes in Dean’s face.

“You’re bleeding!” he says, horrified, “what the hell?! How did—“

“Well I was the prick who thought he was too good for a seatbelt wasn’t I?” Dean huffs, brow bloodied from a long thin cut at his hair-line. He finally takes his hands away from Sam and dabs the blood away with his shirt sleeve.

The moose is still standing on the road, eyes somber in the headlights.

“Fuckin’ moose!” Dean yells suddenly, throat hoarse, and slams a fist on the horn, making it blare unseemly in the dark quiet, and the animal starts at last and staggers off, blinded by the headlights, into the undergrowth.

Sam can’t help it. He giggles, ribs warning him painfully that laughing right now is shitty idea, but he doesn’t care because they almost died because of a _moose_.

“What are you laughing at punk?” Dean mutters, but his mouth is pulled up in a lopsided grin, because if Sam’s laughing then he can’t be that hurt or traumatised.

“We nearly crashed ‘cause of a _moose_ ,” Sam explains, rubbing a hand across his aching neck, “a _moose_ , Dean.” And he laughs again, because the idea sounds even more ridiculous out loud.

“Oh shut up,” Dean says gruffly, but his eyes are bright with humour and left over adrenalin as he reaches round to pull his seat belt on.

He starts the car up again, turning off the radio, and they ease back onto the open road. It’s not until a few miles down the road that Sam notices his heart rate has returned to something resembling normal, and he’s finally got his breath back. He leans back in the seat, pulling the uncomfortable belt away from his skin. His whole body is throbbing like he’s been on fire, but he’s trying to keep that from Dean, who’s going to be feeling guilty enough without Sam making things worse, so he keeps his wriggling to a minimum.

“D’you need that cut looking at?” Sam asks after a while, chancing a glance at Dean’s now stony expression, the thin trickle of blood tracing a path down his temple. Dean wipes at it with his shirt sleeve again.

“Nah,” Dean says, and the humour from earlier is gone. His voice is oddly cold. “I’ll sort it out. What Dad dosen’t know can’t hurt him right?”

“Sure thing,” Sam says at once, keen to let Dean know that he’s not going to snitch on him, as if he ever would, as if he’d ever tell Dad.

“You definitely alright?” Dean asks again, a little while later, and Sam goes for a derisive snort but ends up sort of choking and having to cough to get his still shaky breath back.

Dean reaches over to him while Sam hunches over, lays a broad warm palm between his shoulder blades, comforting in its presence.

“Sam?” he repeats, warily, when Sam’s pulled himself back together.

Sam says he’s fine even though 3 ribs twinge agonizingly with each breath he takes. Dean doesn’t push him any further, but shoots Sam concerned glances all the way home, until Sam feels warm inside, content in the knowledge that Dean cares. That Dean worries about him.

Dean wipes the blood of again when they finally draw up outside the house, Sam helps him flatten his hair over the cut, and when they walk in at 9pm, Dad dosen’t even look up.

 

* * *

Dad probably would never have known about the whole incident if it hadn’t had been for Sam being such an idiot.

It was a week after Dean’s 16th, after the near-car wreck with the moose, and Sam had walked home in the pouring rain, having forgotten his bus money.

Dad didn’t pick him up if it was his own fault for missing the bus. That was the rules.

The weak sun from Dean’s birthday had long gone, lost behind rolling black clouds and distant thunder. The rain was near horizontal in the wind, falling in solid sheets like a continuous, self-refilling bucket being tipped over Sam’s head. By the time he reached the house, despite running between trees and doorways, Sam was completely drenched and quaking with cold. His clothes clung to him like a second skin, trousers chafing between his legs, socks squelching in his too-big shoes, shirt translucent and leeching the heat away from his torso.

“Jesus Sam, had a nice swim did ya?” Dean says when Sam finally closes the front door behind him.

Sam doesn’t respond. He’s tired and cold and miserable, and he can’t be bothered to try and hide it under the ol' Winchester bravado like he knows he should. He sees Dean pause at that out of the corner of his eye, and it’s not really fair, because Dean would have come to pick Sam up in a heartbeat if Dad were away; he’d never have made Sam walk home in this.

But Dad isn’t away, so the rules still apply.

“Don’t think you’ll be forgetting bus money any time soon now will you son?” Dad says unsympathetically from his position leaning against the kitchen door frame. He’s trying not to smile.

Normally this would make Sam pissed, but he’s too drained for that. He just nods tiredly.

“Yes sir.”

That shuts them both up. Sam never says ‘sir’ these days, if he can get away with it. He hates it; it makes him feel like some goddamn soldier which he's _not_ no matter how much Dean is. To suddenly say it now probably came across as disrespectful. Sam can’t find it in himself to care.

The silence between the three of them hangs in the air, heavy and uncomfortable, like the summer air before a storm.

Sam sees Dad's jaw clench.

Dad could easily give Sam a dressing down for cheek, make him apologise, go out again and do reps for being disrespectful; but Dean gets there first.

“Lemme get you a towel Sam,” Dean says quietly, a hunter trained to kill, his big brother who’d beat up anyone who so much as looked at Sam in the wrong way, and the peace-keeper between the three of them. He’s constantly diffusing the tensions that seem to be cropping up more and more between Sam and Dad these days, stepping between them, trying to smooth things over with a grim smile and pleading eyes.

“Just, take off your wet stuff before you come any further in, okay?”

Sam nods dejectedly, not meeting Dean’s eye, not looking up at Dad. He just starts unbuttoning his jacket with numbed fingers, pulling off his sopping jumper over his head, starting on his see-through shirt, peeling the fabric off his shoulders and-

“What the hell is that?” Dad says suddenly, voice hard and angry, and the next second he’s next to Sam, kneeling down in front of him, hands on Sam’s skin.

Sam freezes, glancing up at Dad, taking in his coldly furious expression, eyes fixed on Sam’s chest, and Sam’s stomach drops to the floor.

He’d completely forgotten. How could he have forgotten? His chest is a canvas of yellow and purpling bruises, mapping the seat-belt’s vicious hold in a clear diagonal from hip to collar bone.

At the bedroom door, Sam sees Dean freeze, hears his sharp intake of breath.

Dean had no idea about the bruising either, because Sam hadn’t told him. He’d been careful all week to keep his back turned while changing when Dean was in the room.

Sam’s eyes flit back to Dad, his heart thumping so hard against his ribs that he’s sure it’s audible. Dad is gonna be pissed. Beyond pissed. Abort, abort, immediate retreat. There’s no getting out of this alive.

Dad’s expression is hard. He reaches up and with detached, medical efficiency, begins prodding Sam’s sides, feeling across his ribs.

Sam fights to stay still, to not flinch, for Dean’s sake if anything else because Dad’s smart, he’llhave worked out by now the cause of the bruising; the week-old yellowing ringing the dark purple, the peculiar diagonal formation across his chest. He’ll have catalogued everything he knows Sam has done in the past fortnight, considering when the incident may have occurred, and Dad’s not one of the best hunters in the States for nothing. He’ll connect the dots, and arrive at the conclusion that Sam desperately doesn’t want him to.

Sam stands there, frozen, barely even daring to breathe until Dad probes one of his lower ribs on his left side, and _shit_ that hurts, fiery pain shooting across his abdomen, and Sam winces, sucking in a sharp, shaky breath.

If possible, Dad’s expression goes even harder.

“Fractured,” he grits out, like the word disgusts him. He doesn’t meet Sam’s eye.

Just like Sam doesn’t look up at Dean, despite the fact he can feel Dean’s heavy gaze on him. Because he can’t bear the look of betrayal, of guilt, that he knows he’ll find there in Dean’s eyes.

Sam feels himself flush, shame flooding his cheeks with heat. He’s been an idiot. He’d tried to smooth things over and now it’s only going to be so much worse.

“Dean,” Dad barks, finally getting to his feet, not even looking at Dean. "Outside. Now."

“Dad it wasn’t his fault-“ Sam starts up at once, wrapping his arms across his chest , trying to cover up the bruising, as though that’ll help, “He couldn’t have helped it- there was this moose and-“

“Can it Sam,” Dean says hollowly and Sam still can’t make himself look across at his brother, ignoring him because Dad need to understand, he _has_ to.

“It doesn’t even hurt that bad and it was my fault because I didn’t tell him when I should’ve and-“

“Sam,” Dad cuts him off bluntly, the cold authority in his voice making the words stutter into silence in Sam's throat. “Go wrap up that rib and then get to bed.” He slams out the back door onto the porch, and Dean immediately goes to follow, jaw tense, but Sam reaches for his arm, tugging him back-

“Dean, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- I didn’t think that-“ and Sam feels even more stupid now, because his voice is cracking, and his eyes are suddenly hot and wet with stupid, _stupid_ tears, and Dean’s looking at him like—

Sam can read Dean as easily as Dean can read Sam. Often better, seeing as Sam’s more ‘emotionally aware’ as Dean teases him, even though that isn’t true one bit. But in that moment, in the quickly descending darkness of the house as night falls, taking the last of the rain with it in still blackness and a starless sky, Sam’s hand too tight on Dean’s arm, his skin goose pimpling in the cold, in that moment, Sam has no idea what Dean’s feeling.

But he can guess.

“Get to bed Sammy,” Dean says, quietly, his voice dull in a horrible way that makes Sam physically flinch.

“ _Please-_ “ but Sam can’t get any further because his throat closes up, panic and fear and a desperate desire to make sure Dean isn’t cross with him, because he couldn’t bear it, he just _couldn_ _’t-_

“I’ll come see you later,” Dean promises, lips quirking in an attempt at a smile, and he gently pulls his arm out from Sam’s grip, pushing the back door too and stepping out into the grey blackness.

 

* * *

 

It’s much trickier putting on bandages when his hands are shakinguncontrollably, Sam discovers, but he manages it eventually. His ribs feel marginally better, wrapped tight by gauze beneath his pj t-shirt, when he climbs dutifully into bed at just gone 7pm.

The voices outside are hardly raised, and Sam can’t distinguish the words through the walls, but he can make out whose who. Dad’s doing most of the talking for once, voice low but tone clipped and harsh in a way that most definitely can't be good. Dean’s replies, when they come, are much quieter. Pleading. Contrite. Even from 10 feet and two walls away Sam can hear the regret.

Hot tears sting his eyes again at the knowledge that he's got Dean in trouble with Dad for the first time in months, that it's his fault, _again_ , that Dad will undoubtably punish Dean for Sam's own stupidity, and he rubs fiercely at his eyes with the corner of the sheet, not wanting to look like he's been crying when Dean comes in.

Sam must've dozed off after a while because the next thing he knows Dean is crouched down by his bed, gently nudging Sam awake with a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Here kiddo, got some drugs for you," Dean says quietly, and drops a couple of pills into Sam's sleep warmed hand, pressing a tea-stained mug of water into the other.

Sam blinks blearily, shifting up onto his elbow, squinting at the outline of Dean's face in the half-darkness. He can't quite make out his brother's expression; his cheeks are dry and free from tears (Sam can't remember the last time he saw Dean cry), but his jaw is clenched, mouth in a hard line.

"Dean?" Sam queries, "s’okay?"

Dean snorts in something that might be a semblance of laughter if it wasn't completely devoid of all and any humour.

"Pretty dumb question coming from the guy with the broken ribs. Just take your goddamn pills already will you?"

Sam dosen’t rise to Dean's annoyance. Dean's not annoyed at him anyway, not for this, not ever, and he dosen’t mean to take it out on Sam.

Hell, but Sam wouldn't blame him if he did.

And that, stupidly, makes Sam tear up again. He puts the mug on the bedside table, tries to duck his head away from Dean, but his brother must have freaky night vision or something to go along with his ninja-quiet creep-ups on Sam because he catches Sam's face in his hands, sweeps the tears on Sam's cheeks away with a warm, calloused thumb.

"Hey, hey- don't cry Sammy," Dean's voice is abruptly pleading, his hands cradling Sam's jaw forcing him to meet his eyes, the light only just enough for Sam to make out the moss green colour of them. "Is it your ribs? D'you want me to rewrap 'em for you?"

Sam blinks fiercely, cross with himself, scrubbing at his face but not pushing Dean's hands away, never pushing Dean away.

"M’ fine," he says angrily, but aware he sounds pretty darn pathetic, "I just.”

He meets Dean’s watchful gaze. Dean offers him a weak smile, and if Dean can’t even manage his usual show of bravado then it’s gotta be shit.

“I'm so sorry Dean,” Sam chokes, “I didn't mean for you to get in trouble."

"Damn right you should be sorry," Dean says, without malice; he's being deliberate gentle, barely even teasing because he must see how worked up Sam is over this, "you've been walking round with fractured bones all week and didn't think about telling me? That's a dumbass move Sammy, even for you."

Sam bites his lip, nods.

"Oh quit being so agreeable, it dosen’t suit you," he's trying to sound light-hearted, brushing off Dads dressing down as though it was nothing even though Sam knows Dean hates fighting with Dad more than anything, almost more than he hates fighting with Sam, but it dosen’t quite work. His voice is a little strained, smile a little forced, and Sam's chest aches with the knowledge that it's another one of Dean's fronts, put on to make Sam feel better.

"Budge up squirt," Dean says, pulling back the sheets and starting to climb in, still fully clothed, "I froze my butt off out there and my bed is like a goddamn fridge."

Sam moves over without questioning, let's Dean get settled, and then immediately latches onto Dean's side, wrapping his arms tightly across his chest, and burying his face in Dean's arm so he dosen’t have to look at him.

He knows he's getting too old for this. He's not a baby anymore, and no one treats him like one now that he's started to shoot up, but in the semi-darkness, on a night as cold as this one, when his ribs are throbbing and his throat still feels tight and hot from forcing back tears; he figures he can get away with it.

Dean thankfully dosen't question Sam's sudden display of affection, dosen't mention the fact that they haven't snuggled like this since Sam was 7, just reaches an arm round Sam's back and tugs him a little closer, pressing his cold nose against Sam's forehead in a brief, comforting gesture before leaning back against the pillows.

They fall into silence for a while, listening to Dad clatter around in the kitchen before tromping off into his room and finally falling quiet. Sam moves his head to Dean's chest, curling tighter into his brother's embrace, feeling the steady rise and fall off Dean's chest, hearing the steady, grounding thump thump thump of Dean's heart.

When Dean speaks a little later, Sam feels his voice vibrate through his chest under Sam's cheek-

"You shouldn't have kept it from me that you were hurt Sammy."

His voice is hushed, like he dosen’t want to disturb the dark quiet between them, but Sam hears the emotion bleed into his words all the same; the edge of pained betrayal, the guilt.

And it's just so Dean, to still be fretting over the fact that Sam got hurt and didn't tell Dean, even if it was barely a proper injury, even if Dean has faced far worse before and shrugged it off with a grim smile and a half-hearted wink. It's so Dean to be fixated on Sam and not in the least bit interested in his own, inevitable punishment.

“Broken ribs happen Dean,” he whispers, trying for something that could be humour if Sam were laughing.

“Not to you they don’t.” Dean’s voice is final, worryingly sincere.

Sam wants to tell him that he won’t always be able to look out for him, that he won’t always be able to take each bullet and each blow intended for Sam, that he won’t always be able to keep Sam safe-

But right now, cocooned in the blankets and curled up in Dean’s arms, safe is exactly what he feels.

So he falls asleep.

 


End file.
